The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen!
The Queen excused Rhiannon. She snapped to attention and walked right in front of me, even though the shortest route off the stage led away from me. When she passed, she did not look my way. She denied me one last look from those emerald eyes as she walked out of my life forever. I may still have had all the signs of life, but I was dead inside. The Queen need not have me beheaded. I could just sit there and wither to dust.
The Queen’s face had regained that cold look of triumph. After all, she had just crushed a great evil that would blight her realm no more. I felt for the people because their enemy was right in front of them, telling them everything that was happening was for their own good. I wasn’t the first to die from her bloodthirsty caprice, and I would not be the last.
The blood would flow until it raged out in a mighty torrent and only the undead would be left to roam the land. At least then there will be peace. After we are gone and the last undead collapses from famine, this planet will have a peace greater than at the end of the last World War, greater than the aftermath of the Fall. It will mean the end of strife for both humans and Vampires as well as the end of their existence. Another life form will rise to supremacy and aeons from now they will examine our ruins and wonder what great catastrophe wiped us from existence with such speed while leaving our cities largely untouched.
The moment of brooding was over. The Queen rose and prepared to hand out her verdict.
“People of Anathorn,” she said, addressing both the crowd and myself, “we have brought the accused before you and charged him with treason and conspiracy. Having given him a chance to admit his guilt and reduce his suffering, we gave him a fair trial and presented all the facts before you. After questioning the last witness, I am now ready to pass a judgment. Does the accused have anything else to say before we proceed?”
I did, and I took full advantage of the chance.
“Many of you are angry at my supposed crimes, but deep down, you’re relieved it’s not you on trial up here. All of you know that there is no such thing as a fair trial here…”
“That’s enough,” the Queen snapped.
“…That there hasn’t been a fair trial in decades…”
“Silence! I will have order here!”
“…Because the Queen as you know her…”
“I command you to be quiet!”
And I glared at her and said, “Or what, you will kill me twice?”
Those words were enough to make her hesitate, and I took full advantage.
“Your Queen is a fraud.” The crowd let out a collective gasp. “She is not Anna Thorn. Your Queen has been many decades gone and you’ve been given this poor substitute to rule over you with an iron fist.”
There, I said my piece, but I knew I would pay a hefty price for it. I felt something like a brick hit me on the side of the head. The room spun around twice before I hit the ground.
The Queen stood over me with eyes ready to jump out of her skull. All she could manage now was a low snarl. Her hands trembled and all of her canines protruded from her mouth. I snarled back at her with my own teeth showing.
“You, Mordecai, traitor to the Crown and the City of Anathorn, are sentenced to die by beheading and your remains will be left for the sun to take. Do you have any last words?”
I had no words, but I did have one final gestures. After all, I could only die once. Before the Queen could react, I jumped to my feet and snatched the veil off her face, exposing her mouthful of sharp teeth for all to see. There was a gasp and a wave of whispers that spread all the way to the back. Over on the back of the stage, the rest of the council members were frozen in their seats, all except Lucretius, who was on his feet, his face somewhere between a smile and a grimace.
“Enough! Kill him now!”
There was a single gunshot. I fell back down from the impact, but I felt no pain, most likely from the shock. A deadly silence fell over the whole place, and I saw the reason why. Over to my left was a woman holding a gun with smoke still billowing out of the end. She was wearing the full face mask of the Queen’s guard battle uniform, but I knew who she was from the time I saw her walking through the crowd. The Queen touched a hand to her side, which had been stained a deep red that kept growing over the white cloth. Her hand came away gleaming crimson red.
Someone in the crowd screamed. I was sure it was from the horror of seeing the Queen injured, but then another followed, and another after that. Before I knew the cause, the people were trampling over one another, fleeing in panic. Scores of hungry undead pushed their way into the crowd, seizing anyone unfortunate enough to fall within their reach.
The Queen’s guard sprang into action, shooting at the undead attackers, but it seemed their fire did more harm than good, crippling the living and making them an easy meal for the undead.
Rayna took some shots of her own, taking down several of the guards before another tackled her to the ground. I tried to rush to her aid, but the Queen let out a barrage of strikes and rage-fueled invectives. I fought off her attacks, but I could not shake her off long enough to help Rayna. For a false Queen, she was quite strong. The infusion of ancient blood, enhanced by her insanity, made for a dangerous enemy.
The shooter tore the mask off the other guard and a blaze of red hair flowed down. Fighting a weaker fledgling, she was holding her own and would have won the fight were it not for the three guards that rushed to Rhiannon’s aid. Likewise, another team of guards rushed to push me down on the ground. The cracks of rifle shots echoed through the streets. The riflemen were neutralizing the last of the undead. The guards raised Rayna and made us kneel before the Queen.
Rhiannon pulled the mask off the woman next to me, confirming what I already knew. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders and her eyes shone like ambers. She looked at me and I knew that I could die in peace, which happened to be the next item on the list. The guards pressed their rifle barrels into the backs of our necks.
“Come back!” the false Queen yelled at the crowd. “I order you to return this instant!”
The crowd ignored her orders at first, but returned to the stage when the soldiers forced them back into the square. I could see the fear in their eyes. They were beginning to realize, all too late, that everything I had said was true.
“Behold the two traitors and the remains of their comrades.”
The people looked at the corpses, but they made a bubble around them that extended a few feet out from the bodies.
She turned to look at us. “And now, you two can die together.”
I reached out for Rayna’s hands and she squeezed so hard it hurt, but it was a welcome pain. The guard behind her jabbed the barrel into her head and I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Rhiannon.
Time seemed to have frozen. The false Queen stared in wrath so powerful it took her words, which was why she did not give the order. It was a painful reprieve of our executions. She never got the chance to give it. The screaming from the crowd resumed with greater desperation. This time there was no amount of brute force that could hold them in the square. The undead were coming out from the buildings and the alleys between them. They were even crawling out of the sewers. This time there wouldn’t be enough bullets to stop the attack.
The horde charged the stage. I felt fear at first, but soon regained the same feeling of calm I had felt before the trial. Our would-be executioners were forced to pull their rifles from our heads and engage the undead. It was no use. There were too many of them.
Rayna’s eyes flashed and she broke loose from my grip. The expression on her face and the primal growl that followed told me to stay out of her way. She rushed over to Rhiannon and started shredding her with her claws. Rhiannon tried to fight back, but she could not defend herself from Rayna and the undead. Blood was flying everywhere. Rayna threw a punch that landed on Rhiannon’s skull with a crunch that I heard amidst the chaos. Rhiannon went limp and Rayna flung her into the undead mass. I was s
urprised to see them tear into her. Until this point, I believed she had been immune like me.
The false Queen cut my observations short by pouncing on me, but her earlier exertions had weakened her to the point that I could push her off me with ease. The undead were concentrating on her now, ignoring everyone else unless attacked. She gave them a good fight. The Queen’s arms moved so fast they were a blur. She hit a few of them so hard their necks snapped. Her roaring screams were disturbing, but unfortunately for her, these creatures did not know fear.
Rayna and I got out of the way and let them do their work. The creatures dogpiled on top of her until she was covered. The screams became muffled and then stopped altogether. More undead joined in until all I could see was a squirming mass of grayish flesh. I watched this grim spectacle for a few minutes until they began to disperse, having left nothing but bone shards and tattered rags.The Queen was dead. It was over for Anna Thorn and the city that was her namesake.
I turned over to look at the spot where Rhiannon had been, but she had not been eaten. However, she was covered in scratches and bite marks. One eye was swollen shut, and that beautiful red hair was matted with blood and gore. Worst of all, she was still alive.
The undead got up and started leaving, as if they had remembered a pressing engagement elsewhere. Rayna was the only one that did not seem surprised.
“Mordecai,” whispered the feeble creature lying on the ground. I went over to her. She motioned me to come closer still. Her breath was sharp and came out in labored wheezes.
“What is it, Rhiannon?” I asked, sounding more like a concerned bystander than a lover.
“Mordecai, you have to finish me.” She stopped to hack up fresh blood. “Promise me. I don’t want to become one of them.”
“Fine. I’ll do it, I promise.”
She gave me a weak smile. “I’m sorry I doubted you. You would never have left me. I knew that, but the Queen got to me, sent me to ‘treatments,’ changed me. I’m sorry for everything. I will always lov…”
The last word died in her throat and she let out one final exhalation. I closed her one eye, kissed her forehead, and pulled her sidearm out of her belt holster. I put it to the top of her head and emptied the magazine, barely aware of the noise or the gore. The gun clicked empty and I threw it on the ground.
Rayna was still standing, looking at the corpse-littered square. I walked over to her. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked at me and threw herself into my arms. We embraced one another so hard we could barely breathe. I don’t know how long we were standing there like that, but I do remember what finally made us push away.
Someone swooped down on us, making a loud stomping sound when he landed beside us. We broke the embrace and got ready to defend ourselves until we saw who it was.
“Lucretius!” I yelled. I felt bad that I had forgotten all about him with the commotion.
“Rayna…Mordecai…”
“Lucretius.”
“So glad you two are alive.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t so sure were were going to make it.”
“This wasn’t…quite what I meant to do, but I guess it will do.”
“Where did you go?”
“I climbed the back of the stage and waited for them to leave. It was that simple.” He looked down and slicked his hair back, shaking his head. “I owe you both an apology.”
“No need,” I replied. “It’s not like you could have stopped her without risking a lot of lives.”
“It’s not that.” He sighed and looked around, avoiding our gaze. “I have a secret I have kept from you both. I cannot apologize enough, especially to you, Rayna.”
“Don’t worry about it, Lucretius,” I said. “It’s over now.”
“No, this is important. It must end now.” He closed his eyes and let out another sigh. “The true Queen—”
“Is me. I am the Queen,” said Rayna.
The Coronation
Lucretius and I stared at her with mouths wide open. She crossed her arms and frowned. I couldn’t help but think she looked so beautiful when she was pouting.
“What, you don’t think I’m queen material? I’m not good enough for you fancy folks?”
“How long have you known?” asked Lucretius.
“It started coming back to me after I got attacked. When I was sleeping, I had these weird dreams. They didn’t stop after I woke back up. I started feeling fake, like I was pretending to be somebody else. It made me angry.”
“It doesn’t take much to do that,” I added.
I could tell she was fighting a smile. She reached forward and punched me in the arm, right on a nerve. I resisted the pain as long as I could. Only when I gave in and massaged my aching forearm did she crack a smile.
“See what I mean?” I said to Lucretius. He smiled and gave us a nod.
The cavalry arrived just in time to watch the aftermath. Several APCs rolled into the square, unloading a platoon of well-armed soldiers in full gear. They took up positions all around the square, blocking the exits and setting up their machine guns and grenade launchers in our direction. The soldiers looked confused as they ran around the square looking for their enemy.
“Are you sure this is the location?” asked one of the leaders.
“It was here, Anathorn Square. A big huge horde at Anathorn Square, they said. Not too many places with that name.”
“Well, where the hell is this big horde they’re talking about? It’s not like you can hide them in a closet somewhere.”
A squad approached us and began searching the nearby area. They checked under the stage while the rest came up to us with their weapons aimed at our heads.
“You two, hands up in the air!” they said. The one in charge turned to Lucretius. “Are you okay, councilman?”
“I’m fine, Lieutenant. Have your men stand down. These two are not a threat.”
“Sir, these are the traitors. The Queen wanted them executed.”
“Son, the Queen is dead. She was an impostor. The rightful Queen stands before you.” He pointed to Rayna.
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“You’ll get used to it. I’ll release more details later. For now, just tell your men to stand down. We’ll need a transport back to the mansion.”
“Look at you, big man in charge,” I said to him. He shrugged it off.
“All this time, you were the one that was holding this place together,” said Rayna. “Now I understand why you treated me the way you did for all those years.”
“I couldn’t have anyone suspecting that you were anything but a lowly border guard, could I? If only they knew that you were the one that turned me.”
“Yeah, if only—wait, what did you say, I turned you? But you’re so…old.”
He laughed. “My dear Rayna, you still have much to learn about yourself. You are the oldest of our kind.
“When I went to my third expedition to Babylon, I once overheard a group of priests make veiled references to the Ever-living Goddess. Thinking I could not understand them, they continued talking freely among themselves.
“Over the course of several months, I was able to gather enough information about them to blackmail them into admitting their secret. I threatened to go to the high priest with this information. After giving me an oath never to reveal their secret under penalty of death, they allowed me to enter their sanctum.
“Imagine my surprise when they led me deep within the bowels of a temple and I discovered—”
“That the goddess was an actual woman,” Rayna interrupted.
“Yes,” Lucretius continued. “Indeed, that was the very thing that saved me. The priests meant to have me sacrificed. I was never meant to leave that chamber alive—”
“But I told them to leave you be.”
“That you did. They feared you as much as they respected you. Your word was law. You took a fancy to me from the moment you first saw me.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do when
a handsome foreigner comes into the sanctum, let him die?”
“Thankfully, the answer was no. She took to me almost immediately, which created a great deal of envy among the priests, but I didn’t care because she said I was not to be touched. I became a companion of sorts. A pet, if you will.”
She gave Lucretius a playful shove. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“No, it wasn’t, but eventually, she became afraid that I would grow old and die, so she bade me to drink her blood.”
“How did you take that?”
“I was a bit horrified at first, but she could be so persuasive, so I did it. I drank the whole cup and asked her if she was happy. She said, ‘Of course, now go to sleep. Little did I know that those would be my last hours as a mortal man.”
“But it was worth it, right?” Rayna asked.
“Of course it was—I wouldn’t admit it at first—but soon the idea grew on me. We could live forever, feeding on the blood of our most loyal followers and the slaves and criminals they brought.”
“Sounds wonderful,” I said.
“Yes,” said Lucretius, “it would have been wonderful, but all things must come to an end, even for immortals.”
“What happened?”
“Cyrus happened, him and his army of barbarians. We barely escaped with our lives. With the help of some friends, we snuck away to Greece, where we lived until we had to outrun Cyrus one more time, eventually settling in what would become the Roman Empire.
“The patricians were good to us. In exchange for eliminating their rivals, they gave us shelter and slaves to tend to us and supplement our diet as needed. Along with other Vampires we made there, we formed part of the Republic’s secret army. We were the dark tendril that wormed its way through the land, weakening their rivals and helping them win their wars.
After the Empire began to weaken, we relocated to Britannia, where we hid for many centuries. When we resurfaced into society, we were reborn as nobility. Our titles ensured that our secret livelihood would stay that way. Then there was America, after…”
“After what? What happened in America?” asked Rayna.
After the Fall Page 32